PLNs for Students

PLNs for Students

Students can benefit from developing their own PLN. What are some ways that you have helped your students to accomplish this? Have you found any resources that have been particularly helpful in teaching them networking skills to take control of their own learning?

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Students developing a PLN is a fantastic idea, and is a good way to help students realize that social media can actually help us improve our lives not just flirt. One social media tool that I have looked at but haven't been able to see in use is Edmodo. This is an education oriented Micro-blog service that allows you to create classes so you can send out blog entries to specific groups.

One of the questions I have is what about resistance from those who feel this puts students at risk?

With regards to the possibility of putting students at risk, I think a site that is moderated like an online blackboard or like this group forum can be used. High school students especially as they prepare for higher education will benefit a lot from this kind of interaction as there is an increasing number of college classes that use Online Blackboards. I am not sure if this can be done in the Elementary and Middle School level, I would love to see some ideas in this too.

I have built a FREE site which enables students to manage their group projects online. It's called http://Enterthegroup.com
Students can create private pages for their groups so they can get organized and communicate. The site also allows them to manage their calendar, create to-do lists, share files and a lot more.

[quote]Anyone use the Elgg platform for social networking in the classroom?[/quote]
I've used both Elgg and Ning, but I've found that CommunityPi is better. It's simple to use yet powerful, and of course free. http://communitypi.org